Taming Hylan Boulevard

Anyone who has moved around Staten Island using anything other than a car knows that this is not a good borough in which to be a pedestrian. Avid runners and walkers insist it can be downright dangerous.

And Hylan Boulevard is the most dangerous place of all.

Last week alone, three people on foot were struck by motor vehicles on Staten Island streets in the space of two days. One man, a former St. Joseph by-the-Sea track standout and a special education teacher, was still in critical condition with head and chest trauma as of this writing. His friend who was with him at the time, was less seriously injured. They had been running along Hylan Boulevard in Annadale when they were mowed down.

The accident is disturbing for a number of reasons. One, of course, is the alleged intoxicated condition of the driver at the time she hit the runners.

It is also the latest in a string of serious accidents involving pedestrians on Staten Island’s busiest local street. And they seem to be happening more frequently in recent years.

Between 2006 and 2008, there were seven pedestrian fatalities on Hylan Boulevard, three of them senior citizens. That was enough to make Hylan the eighth most dangerous road for pedestrians in the tri-state area, according data compiled by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and Third Avenue in Manhattan, with many more pedestrians, both had nine fatalities over that period, just one more each than Hylan.

It’s no mystery. Hylan sees heavy traffic all day and much of the night. It is also very wide. So it takes pedestrians longer to get across it.

Everyone who has ever driven along Hylan has seen an elderly person struggling to make it across the boulevard in front of a phalanx of cars ready to rocket away the instant the light turns green. Or the mother with small kids marooned on the traffic island as cars zoom by within inches on both sides.

Even under the best of circumstances, it’s a dangerous situation. And when people don’t obey the rules, it’s a formula for disaster.

Sure enough, disaster happens all too often on Hylan. That’s no mystery either. Pedestrians can do dopey things, but they are no match for the ethos adhered to by an alarming percentage of drivers on Hylan Boulevard. They speed; they run red lights; they tailgate; they change lanes unexpectedly; they blow through crosswalks without a thought to the pedestrians waiting to cross.

And they expect every other driver to behave the same way. Try to be nice and slow down to allow a pedestrian to cross and you’re likely to be cursed at, if not have someone else’s front grill planted in your car’s trunk. Aggressive, hostile drivers are everywhere these days on Staten Island, of course, but Hylan Boulevard seems to be their favorite venue.

The city Department of Transportation has made improvements to enhance pedestrian safety on this thoroughfare, including countdown timers on WALK signs and wider pedestrian islands. They help, but they are not enough because of the culture that prevails among many drivers.

District Attorney Dan Donovan is so alarmed by the trend that he has called for a summit among borough officials to develop ways to address it.

He said the Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s ranking of Hylan Boulevard “is a reality that is not unknown to Staten Islanders who on a daily basis encounter drivers who ignore basic traffic rules and many pedestrians and bicyclists who often fail to proceed in a safe manner.”He added, “Too many of our friends and neighbors have been seriously injured or even killed on this roadway. This has to stop, and I believe through our collective efforts we can make a definite difference.”

We hope he’s right and we wish him well. So do all the people who have to cross Hylan Boulevard on foot. Unfortunately, we don’t think there’s any innovation — short of pedestrian footbridges at strategic intersections — that will address the fundamental problem.

Somehow, it has to be driven home to the moron drivers who gladly take other people’s lives in their hands that there’s a good chance they’ll get tickets with hefty fines and steep increase in their insurance premiums (assuming they have insurance, or even a license). Only then will Hylan be tamed.